part of the reparation will come to little. Let him be fatisfied that he shall not be able to force himfelf upon me for an adverfary. I contemn him too much to enter into competition with him. His own tranflations of Virgil have answered his criticisms on mine. If (as they fay, he has declared in print) he prefers the verfion of Ogilby to mine, the world has made him the fame compliment: for it is agreed on all hands, that he writes even below Ogilby: that, you will fay, is not eafily to be done; but what cannot Milbourn bring about? I am fatisfied however, that while he and I live together, I shall not be thought the worst poet of the age. It looks as if I had defired him underhand to write fo ill against me: but upon my honest word I have not bribed him to do me this fervice, and am wholly guiltlefs of his pamphlet. It is true, I fhould be glad, if I could perfuade him to continue his good offices, and write fuch another critique on any thing of mine: for I find by experience he has a great ftroke with the reader, when he condemns any of my poems, to make the world have a better opinion of them. has taken fome pains with my poetry; but nobody will be perfuaded to take the fame with his. If I had taken to the church (as he affirms, but which was never in my thoughts) I fhould have had more fenfe, if not more grace, than to have turned myfelf out of my benefice by writing libels on my parishioners. But his account of my manners and my principles, are of a piece with his cavils and his poetry: and fo I have done with him for ever.

He

As

As for the City Bard, or Knight Phyfician, I hear his quarrel to me is, that I was the author of Absalom and Achitophel, which he thinks is a little hard on his fanatic patrons in London.

But I will deal the more civilly with his two poems, because nothing ill is to be spoken of the dead: and therefore peace be to the Manes of his Arthurs. I will only fay, that it was not for this noble knight that I drew the plan of an Epic poem on king Arthur, in my preface to the tranflation of Juvenal. The guardian angels of kingdoms were machines too ponderous for him to manage; and therefore he rejected them, as Dares did the whirlbats of Eryx, when they were thrown before him by Entellus. Yet from that preface he plainly took his hint: for he began immediately upon the ftory; though he had the bafenefs not to acknowledge his benefactor; but instead of it, to traduce me in a libel.

I fhall fay the lefs of Mr Collier, because in many things he has taxed me juftly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and expreffions of mine, which can be truly argued of obscenity, profanenefs, or immorality; and retrat them. If he be my enemy, let him triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no perfonal occafion to be otherwife, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to draw my pen in the defence of a bad caufe, when I have so often drawn it for a good one. Yet it were not difficult to prove, that in many places he has perverted my meaning by his gloffes; and interpreted my words into blafphemy and

baudry,

baudry, of which they were not guilty; befides that he is too much given to horfe-play in his raillery ; and comes to battle like a dictator from the plough. I will not fay, The zeal of God's house has eaten him up; but I am fure it has devoured fome part of his goodmanners and civility. It might alfo be doubted whether it were altogether zeai, which prompted him to this rough manner of proceeding; perhaps it became not one of his function to rake into the rubbish of ancient and modern plays; a divine might have employed his pains to better purpose, than in the naftiness of Plautus and Ariftophanes; whofe examples, as they excufe not me, fo it might be poffibly fuppofed, that he read them not without fome pleasure. They who have written commentaries on thofe poets, or on Horace, Juvenal, and Martial, have explained fome vices, which without their interpretation had been unknown to modern times. Neither has he judged impartially betwixt the former age and us.

There is more baudry in one Play of Fletcher's, called The Cuftom of the Country, than in all ours together. Yet this has been often acted on the stage in my remembrance. Are the times fo much more reformed now, than they were five and twenty years ago? If they are, I congratulate the amendment of our morals. But I am not to prejudice the cause of my fellow-poets, though I abandon my own defence: they have fome of them answered for themselves, and neither they nor I can think Mr. Collier fo formidable an enemy, that we fhould fhun him. He has loft ground at the latter end

of

of the day, by pursuing his point too far, like the prince of Conde at the battle of Senneph: from immoral plays, to no plays; "ab abufu ad ufum, non valet "confequentia." But being a party, I am not to erect myfelf into a judge. As for the rest of those who have written against me, they are fuch fcoundrels, that they deferve not the leaft notice to be taken of them. Blackmore and Milbourn are only distinguished from the crowd, by being remembered to their infamy.

"Demetri, Teque Tigelli

"Difcipulorum inter jubeo plorare cathedras."

TALES